Cover not available

Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 24:4 (2019) ► pp.445–489

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Why very good in India might be pretty good in North America

Amplifier-adjective 2-grams in Global Englishes

 | Johannes Gutenberg University
Published online: 1 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.17063.wag
Abstract
Situated at the interface of several sub-disciplines (corpus linguistics, World Englishes, variationist sociolinguistics), this study investigates patterns of adjectival amplification (very good, so glad, pretty cool) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE). It highlights regional distributions/preferences of amplifier-adjective 2-grams and the idiosyncratic status of certain bigrams according to their frequency status. Globally, clear regional preferences in amplification patterns as well as possible trends concerning change are identified. Regionally, L1 varieties contrast starkly with some regions (Africa, Indian subcontinent) but – maybe unexpectedly – not with others (Southeast Asia). The results offer insights into current trajectories of change concerning the investigated amplifiers in certain regions and 2-grams: North American varieties are leading a trend away from very towards so and possibly pretty in the future.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Adjectival intensification: Trends established in previous studies
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Adjective amplification world-wide: A first overview
    • 4.1Overall intensification rates in GloWbE
    • 4.2Type-token ratio of top 10 amplifiers in GloWbE
    • 4.3GloWbE intensifier ranking
  • 5.Focus on: Individual patterns
    • 5.1Identifying 2-grams: Method
    • 5.2 Very world-wide
    • 5.3Frequent vs. infrequent adjectives and their amplifiers: Good vs. sick
    • 5.4Top 10 amplifier-adjective 2-grams world-wide
      • 5.4.1Interregional comparisons (amplifier comparisons across regions)
      • 5.4.2Intra-regional comparisons (regional comparisons across amplifiers)
    • 5.5Going large(r): Regional patterns emerging from the top 100 bigrams (very, so, really, pretty)
  • 6.Discussion & conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (69)
References
Aijmer, K. (2017). The intensifier ‘fucking’ in Spoken BNC14. Paper presented at the ICAME 38 Conference, Prague, Czech Republic.
Arnon, I. & Snider, N. (2010). More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases. Journal of Memory and Language, 621, 67–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barnfield, K. & Buchstaller, I. (2010). Intensifiers on Tyneside: Longitudinal developments and new trends. English World-Wide, 31(3), 252–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauer, L. & Bauer, W. (2002). Adjective boosters in the English of young New Zealanders. Journal of English Linguistics, 30(3), 244–257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beltrama, A. & Casasanto, L. A. (2017). Totally tall sounds totally younger: Intensification at the socio-semantics interface. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 21(2), 154–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blumenthal-Dramé, A. (2012). Entrenchment in Usage-based Theories: What Corpus Data Do and Do not Reveal about the Mind. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breban, T. & Davidse, K. (2016). The history of ‘very’ – the directionality of functional shift and (inter)subjectification. English Language and Linguistics, 20(2), 221–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M. & New, B. (2009). Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English. Behavior Research Methods, 41(4), 977–990. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buchstaller, I. (2014). Quotatives. New Trends and Sociolinguistic Implications. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2003). Mechanisms of change in grammaticization: The role of frequency. In B. D. Joseph & R. D. Janda (Eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics (pp. 602–623). Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chong, P. F. & Nahji, N. S. (2010). When very intense is not really so intense. Strathy Undergraduate Working Papers on Canadian English, 81, 52–63.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, M. (2008–). The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 520 million words, 1990-present. Available online at [URL]
(2010–). The Corpus of Historical American English: 400 million words, 1810–2009. Available online at [URL]
(2013). Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries. Available online at [URL]
(2015b). A Reply. English World-Wide, 36(1), 45–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, B. H. & Brewer, J. (1999). Electronic Discourse: Linguistic Individuals in Virtual Space. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davydova, J., A. E. Tytus & E. Schleef. (2017). Acquisition of sociolinguistic awareness by German learners of English: A study in perceptions of quotative be like . Linguistics, 55(4), 783–812. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. (1977). Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language, 1(1), 19–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuchs, R. & Gut, U. (2016). Register variation in intensifier usage across Asian Englishes. In H. Pichler (Ed.), Discourse-pragmatic Variation and Change in English: New Methods and Insights (pp. 183–210). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gries, S. Th., & Mukherjee, J. (2010). Lexical gravity across varieties of English: An ICE-based study of n-grams in Asian Englishes. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 15(4), 520–548. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hale, C. & Scanlon, J. (1999). Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. New York, NY: Broadway Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ito, R. & Tagliamonte, S. (2003). ‘Well’ weird, ‘right’ dodgy, ‘very’ strange, ‘really’ cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society, 32(2), 257–279. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jurafsky, D. & Martin, J. H. (in preparation). Chapter 15: Vector Semantics (Draft of November 7, 2016). In D. Jurafsky & J. H. Martin, Speech and Language Processing (3rd ed.). Retrieved from [URL] (last accessed July 2017).
Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk & H. G. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World (pp. 11–30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kennedy, C. & McNally, L. (2005). Scale structure, degree modification, and the semantics of gradable predicates. Language, 81(2), 345–381. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kortmann, B. & Lunkenheimer, K. (Eds.) (2013). The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved from [URL] (last accessed April 2019).
Labov, W. (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume 1: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lorenz, G. (2002). Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to the delexicalization and grammaticalization of intensifiers in Modern English. In I. Wischer & G. Diewald (Eds.), New Reflections on Grammaticalization (pp. 143–161). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, R., Dembry, C., Hardie, A., Brezina, V., & McEnery, T. (2017). The Spoken BNC2014: Designing and building a spoken corpus of everyday conversations. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22(3), 319–344. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macauley, R. (2006). Pure grammaticalization: The development of a teenage intensifier. Language Variation and Change, 181, 267–283.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mair, C. (2015). Response to Davies & Fuchs. English World-Wide, 36(1), 29–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McEnery, T., Tono, Y. & Xiao, R. (2006). Corpus-based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méndez-Naya, B. (2008). On the history of downright . English Language and Linguistics, 12(2), 267–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mesthrie, R. & R. Bhatt. (2008). World Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mukherjee, J. (2015). Response to Davies & Fuchs. English World-Wide, 36(1), 34–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nelson, G. (2015). Response to Davies & Fuchs. English World-Wide, 36(1), 38–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevalainen, T. & Rissanen, M. (2002). Fairly pretty or pretty fair? On the development and grammaticalization of English downtoners. Language Sciences, 241, 359–380. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from [URL] (last accessed April 2019).
Paradis, C. (1997). Degree Modifiers of Adjectives in Spoken British English. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). ‘It’s well weird’. Degree modifiers of adjectives revisited: The nineties. In J. M. Kirk (Ed.), Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English (pp. 147–160). Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Adjectives and boundedness. Cognitive Linguistics, 12(1), 47–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Partington, A. (1993). Corpus evidence of language change: The case of intensifiers. In M. Baker, G. Francis & E. Tognini-Bonelli (Eds.), Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair (pp. 177–192). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peters, P. (2015). Response to Davies & Fuchs. English World-Wide, 36(1), 41–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team (2016). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. [Computer software]. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from [URL] (last accessed April 2019).
Racz, P. (2012). Operationalising salience: Definite article reduction in the North of England. English Language and Linguistics, 16(1), 57–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reichelt, S. & Durham, M. (2017). Adjective intensification as a means of characterization: Portraying in-group membership and Britishness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Journal of English Linguistics, 45(1), 60–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schneider, E. W. (2007). Postcolonial English. Varieties around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schweinberger, M. (2016). Ongoing change in the New Zealand English intensifier system. Paper presented at the ISLE 4 Conference, Poznan, Poland.
Stenström, A.-B. (1999). ‘He was really gormless – She’s bloody crap’: Girls, boys and intensifiers. In H. Hasselgård & S. Okesfjell (Eds.), Out of Corpora: Studies in Honour of Stig Johansson (pp. 69–78). Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoffel, C. (1901). Intensives and Down-toners. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. (2008). So different and pretty cool! Recycling intensifiers in Toronto, Canada. English Language and Linguistics, 12(2), 361–394. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. & Roberts, C. (2005). So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series ‘Friends’. American Speech, 80(3), 280–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. (2016). So sick or so cool? The language of youth on the internet. Language in Society, 45(1), 1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tan, P. K. W. & Tan, D. K. H. (2008). Attitudes towards non-standard English in Singapore. World Englishes, 27(3/4), 465–479. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Heuven, W. J. B., Mandera, P., Keuleers, E. & Brysbaert, M. (2014). Subtlex-UK: A new and improved word frequency database for British English. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(6), 1176–1190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Rooy, B., & Schäfer, L. (2003). An evaluation of three POS taggers for the tagging of the Tswana Learner English Corpus. In D. Archer, P. Rayson, A. Wilson & T. McEnery (Eds.), Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2003 Conference, Technical Papers Volume 161 (pp. 835–844). Lancaster: University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, S. (2017). Totally new and pretty awesome: Amplifier-adjective bigrams in GloWbE. Lingua, 2001, 63–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(submitted). To each their own – trajectories of change and the role of social factors for high-frequency intensifier-adjective combinations in spoken British English, 1994–2014.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xia, R. & Tao, H. (2007). A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of amplifiers in British English. Sociolinguistic Studies, 1(2), 241–273.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. (2011). “GenX so.” Arnold Zwicky’s Blog. Retrieved from [URL] (last accessed April 2019).
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Funke, Nina & Tobias Bernaisch
2022. Intensifying and downtoning in South Asian Englishes. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 43:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Stratton, James M.
2022. Old English intensifiers. Journal of Historical Linguistics 12:1 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue